This is a corrected version of this story.

There are separate but related developments to report on Monroe Community College and the Sibley Building.

The first is that City Hall, despite previous assertions, will intervene in the lease dispute between MCC and Winn Companies. And that, says Mayor Tom Richards, may involve forgiving at least some of the more than $22 million Wilmorite owes the city for the Sibley Building.

Winn Companies, a Boston-based real estate firm, has an option to buy the Sibley Building from Rochwil Associates, a Wilmorite subsidiary. MCC's lease at Sibley expired on December 31, 2011, and, despite year-long negotiations, Winn and the college have so far failed to come to terms. MCC officials say Winn is asking for too much money.

MCC needs to stay in the Sibley Building, at least in the short term. The college's board wants to move MCC to Kodak-owned properties on State Street, but even if that deal goes through, the site won't be ready for years.

Richards says the $22 million debt gives the city leverage in the Winn-MCC lease negotiations.

"I don't hold out any hope that we're going to get paid much of that money," he said in an interview yesterday. "But it is currency to influence the outcome. We can say, ‘All right, we're willing to give up parts of these claims in order to facilitate the resolution of this thing.' What's most important for the city is to get that building back into as full a use as possible, not to try to recoup what has been an unfortunate decade out there."

Anybody who buys the building essentially buys the debt, Richards said, and easing the load might inspire Winn to cut a better deal with MCC. But MCC will pay more than it does now, he said.

"It's going to go up some," Richards said. "It's not realistic for them to expect that it won't."

The other development is that Richards plans to move ahead with a police substation in the Sibley Building as soon as possible. He's received a proposal from Police Chief James Sheppard, but he said he will only share the final plan. The substation will happen whether or not MCC moves out of Sibley, he said.

Richards said he was going to wait for the Mortimer Street transit center to open to see how that affects the situation on Main Street, "but I've thought about it, and I've said, ‘there's no real reason to wait.'"

The area around the Sibley Building is the city's main bus-transfer spot, and the resulting concentration of people sometimes leads to problems, including rowdy youth.

Richards said there are union issues to work out before the Sibley substation can open, but he'd like to have it up and running this year. The substation can technically open, he said, without the physical infrastructure in place.